Its downtown already houses an interesting mosh of retail from cafes to boutiques and hotels. The newbie in the crowd is Roey's Paintbox Parties in the lower level of 453 Main Street. The colorful shop relocates Roey Ebert from her space in Center Valley.

First, finding the Paintbox Party on busy Main Street is relatively easy since all you have to do is look for its colorful sign and walk down the colorful stairs and through a hallway painted with bright colors and slogans like "Follow Your Heart."

It's a pretty cool way to transition a sterile office space into a fun retail environment.

What is Paintbox Parties? It introduces novices to painting in a party-type atmosphere. That includes everything from birthdays to social gatherings like girls night out and corporate team-building sessions.

The shop provides materials and instruction to complete an acrylic-on-canvas painting in a roughly two-hour session.

Another addition to the city follows the growing iPhone repair store trend.

iMobile Rescue, a shop that repairs iPhones and other Apple products, has opened in the lower level of the KNBT building at 44 E. Broad St.

This converts what was largely a mobile and mail-in business to brick and mortar, offering walk-in repairs of iPhones and iPads that need screens replaced, sustained water damage or have other problems.

The shop will also house accessories for Apple devices.

Owners Ryan Critchett and Nick Kounoupis are looking to develop hardware to extend smartphone battery life.

iMobile rescue adds to the boon of iPhone repair service retailers in the country. I mentioned months ago that downtown Allentown merchant Mobile Genius was expanding with locations in the Lehigh Valley and Montgomery malls.

Such shops, seen as a cheaper alternative to the Apple store, are capitalizing on the meteoric popularity of iPhones, iPods, iPads and other devices.

The Shoppes at the Sands continues to add more merchants.

The 200,000-square-foot luxury outlet mall at the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem will soon include Coach Factory Men's, Art of Bread by Georges Perrier and Charming Charlie, a fashion jewelry and accessories retailer.

This helps to fill the mall, which already houses 20 merchants, including Coach, Corning, Chico's, Peeps & Co., DKNY, Nine West and Hartstrings.

The online world has been buzzing about it since news broke days ago, but in case you missed it, Golden Corral will begin construction Monday at Lehigh Valley Mall.

This is big news for the many Retail Watch readers patiently — or perhaps impatiently — awaiting the arrival of the buffet chain known for its carving stations and signature "chocolate wonderfall."

I hope my email and voicemail baskets can get a reprieve now that construction will begin. The 400-seat restaurant is set to open as early as November at the former Chi-Chi restaurant site across from Macy's, according to a spokesman for Golden Corral.

This Golden Corral has been delayed for months, though readers haven't been able to forget about it because of the onslaught of television commercials touting the food.

Golden Corral seems to have a strong following in the Valley and it's not even here yet. Never mind the region is already home to roughly 30 buffets that range from Asian cuisine to chains like Cici's Pizza and Old Country Buffet, which is in the Whitehall Mall, a short distance from Golden Corral's new home. And an Asian buffet is expected to take up part of the former Circuit City building on Grape Street.

In other news on the buffet front, New Century Buffet in Allentown Commons shopping center on Hanover Avenue in Allentown was short-lived. The place lasted weeks before shuttering earlier this month.

Have you noticed anything different about the Macy's building at the Lehigh Valley Mall in recent days? Take a look because portions of the 212,000-square-foot anchor have been power-washed, removing a grimy coating.

Dark spots from the exhaust of cars and trucks on nearby Route 22 have peppered the light-colored building, taking a bit of the sheen off the mall's image as one of the region's premier shopping destinations.

This was a much-needed enhancement to say the least.

Did last month's column pointing out the building's ugly appearance have anything to do with this?

The White Castle at the new Pohatcong Plaza II shopping center on Route 22 just outside Phillipsburg is supposed to open today.

The 2,242-square-foot fast-food restaurant is the chain's last block castle structure. New stores will be made with steel frames, according to spokeswoman Christiana Dziak.

The Ohio-based chain is known for its castle-like buildings and small burgers, called sliders.

White Castle joins Wawa and a Walmart Supercenter at the former Laneco property.